December Forecast: Thinky and Emotional

(Like every December)

For some reason, December always takes me by surprise. December's like a concentrated version of summer for me: I spend the whole year idealising it and looking forward to it, and then I build my hopes up too much, end up somehow disappointed, and end up crying.

For me, December boils down to birthday and Christmas. Once December hits, I remember the stress of money, of final assignments and exams. I get panicky that my birthday won't be anything special, and it'll be like those years of my early teens when I didn't have enough friends to have a birthday party, or those many years afterward of stressing myself out by overcompensating for those friendless years. I usually cry on my birthday. (And don't even get me started about how emotional I get about Christmas...) Not that I have any problem with aging. Actually, I keep accidentally referring to myself as 26 already. How am I not 26 yet?

No, it usually ends up something like my 16th birthday (otherwise known as "The First of the Overcompensating Birthday Parties I Threw For Myself"). I invited a heap of people. For some reason, nobody in my family was helping me clean, and everyone else was making the house messier with the things they were busy with. I was trying to do a billion things at once, and to make things worse, my little brother was following me around the house saying (in his most sarcastic voice), "Sweet sixteen!" And then I got frustrated and started crying. Crying because it felt like I was the only one making a big deal about my birthday. Crying because it was the first time I was inviting all my new high school friends over to my house and I was really insecure. Crying because I expect my birthday to be the best day of the entire year and everything about it must be perfect, and then when it isn't, I fall apart.

Or, it's like last year and I have a valid reason to cry, but spend the day determined that I'm not allowed to be sad on my birthday, bottling up my feelings for one more day.

This year, I've already been weirdly emotional about my birthday, and it's still a week away. You see, Chris is working evenings these days, and so on my birthday he'll be working from 2-10, and therefore will be out of the house from 1-10:30. Otherwise known as "Most of the part of that day when I'm awake." And so, this morning, I came to terms with the realisation that there's no way that I'll be able to have my birthday party on my birthday. And that my church is having our Christmas dinner the next day. Which is starting to look like it's going to be difficult to have any birthday party at all. Poor Chris, because I got weirdly emotional about it.

Maybe I'll fight against both sides of the emotionalism, and just invite a couple of the girls over for my birthday, and just watch a movie and eat some cake. No fondue stress, none of that other stuff. Just "come hang over at my house, because it happens to be my birthday." Then, at least, I won't be spending the whole day alone.

Or maybe I'll spend the entire day in my pyjamas, eating a cake. I'd also go for that.

I know. I know. I'm overthinking it.

This has been another installment of "I Use My Blog As Therapy" with the Queen of West Procrastination. Yes, after going through last December's archives, she is also aware that she was far funnier and more interesting last year.